The present invention relates to the electrical, electronic and computer arts, and, more particularly, to remotely controlling home appliances and the like.
It has become commonplace to control home appliances remotely, i.e. without directly touching any controls provided on the appliances. Devices for doing this are known as remote controls. Remote controls can include handheld light transmitters (infrared or visible), which interact with photodiodes installed on home appliances. For example, a remote control can control multiple appliances, selecting which appliance to control by pointing the remote at the appliance. Remote controls also can include passive sensors such as motion trackers. Generally, the handheld transmitters are operated by small finger motions (fine motor operations) whereas the motion trackers interact with large limb motions (gross motor operations). One exemplary optical motion tracker recognizes large hand motions. Another exemplary remote control technology adapts a mobile device with inbuilt inertial sensors to permit gestural remote control of an appliance. Voice recognition controllers also are known. Facial recognition also has been proposed for remote control of appliances; for example, image recognition on a face or any part of the face (e.g., eye tracking) can be associated with remote control operations of a powered wheelchair, computer mouse, or multimedia system.